The Ice House cover

This weekend Salon reported that "A rare Abraham Lincoln stamp that was stolen from Indiana in 1967 and surfaced 39 years later in Chicago has sold at auction for more than $430,000."

The writer of this piece, apparently from AP, shares with much of the public a lack of appreciation of the difference between a "stamp" and a "cover" on which stamp(s) are affixed. He/she later compounds the error by saying that the "cover is on an envelope."

The item sold at auction, pictured above, is the Ice House cover (so named because it was addressed - in 1873 - to an ice house in Calcutta. The history of the cover is nicely detailed at a Virtual Stamp Club article.

The value of old stamps is determined by their rarity. High-denomination stamps were printed in much smaller quantities because they were used only for long-distance transport of letters and packages. Few survived, and those that did were often removed from their envelope or package wrapping in order to be mounted in stamp albums. This bicolor stamp depicting Lincoln would sell on its own for just a few thousand dollars, but as shown here, properly used on an overseas mailing, its value is limited only by the contents of the bidders' wallets.

Take-home message: If you encounter (very) old stamps on correspondence, package wrappings, legal documents, etc., leave them in place until someone with appropriate expertise has an opportunity to examine them for you.

Photo credit: AP Photo / Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, Inc.